


Blood of the Covenant

by Goldmonger



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Epic Friendship, Family Feels, Gen, Light Angst, Mostly Fluff, Team Bonding, Team as Family, basically I just want them to talk about their feelings, it's sad, yet cathartic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11891223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: “’Hey guys, I’m not dead’ isn’t a call I was prepared to make, honestly,” says Matt.





	1. Empty Tomb

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to get them in a room together again. Also looking forward to Daredevil!Danny in the future of the marvel-verse... :)

His body isn’t whole; his mind even more scattered, like a handful of leaves thrown to the wind. Any kick or flip that he could have once cranked out without a second thought now punishes him, muscles protesting where they used to stretch, joints creaking where they used to be fluid as water. Scars trail across his body like railway lines on a map of the Old West, puckered and undoubtedly hideous, but healed. He can’t move as easily, but he will soon. He has work to do.

New York sounds the same, even if it feels as different as glass to sand. The streets below his perch on the roof of the tenement building are streaming with shoppers and vendors, people on the way to or home from work in a flurry of honks and music and chatter, all of them bathed in fluorescent light that sizzles in his ear canals. The citizens, the lifeblood of the city, still pumping away in the months since The Hand opened a vein. New York had healed its own wounds too – it always would, and for that Matt feels a surge of affection and pride. His city, his home, is here to welcome him back, and not too soon, either. Matt vaults onto a fire escape, crouching on the metal grille as he turns his face toward the north side of the apartments, into the breeze that’s coming from upstate. It’s refreshing, despite the anxiety spurred by his return, and he can’t help but swell with relief at the acrid scents of crushed cigarettes, piss and rancid meat that dominate his olfactory senses for the moment. He trains his hearing on an argument two storeys below him, but it doesn’t seem like it will turn violent. A party of teenagers fire half-hearted insults and kernels of popcorn at a homeless man, but they get bored within seconds, the man’s snores deafening from Matt’s position. It’s a quiet night, and Matt finds he’s not itching for a fight after the physical therapy he put himself through that morning. He’s spending more and more time dwelling on the past few weeks, not only his injuries but what overrides all of them in importance, what makes him toss and turn in silk sheets like his skin is alight with flames.

Elektra. Gone, again.

Stick, gone permanently.

And a woman’s face with a topography he knew, a nose he’d felt break on his own face, a jaw he’d many times clenched in rage. She’d called herself Maggie. She was a stranger, and Matt left her and her sisters as soon as he could support his own weight. Work to do, he insisted, tearing himself away.

Matt shakes himself with more than a little impatience, dislodging the Catholic guilt like a persistent tick. The city is convalescing, but still a vulnerable target. His first patrol can’t be riddled with self-involved dilemmas. He turns to skim across another few rooftops, maybe scope out a few blocks east, and in the wind catches a grunt that’s disconcertingly familiar. He tilts his head, listens.

“Just – stop – _running!_ ”

“It’s not mine, I told you -,”

The voice sighs, and Matt’s running and leaping now, the burgeoning smell scaling his nostrils; sweat, incense, Armani, the smoky friction of skin.

“It’s a TV that you carried out of a shattered display window. Under your arm. What, were you donating it at a really unfortunate time? Is that it?”

The other figure groans, his breath hot and fetid with teeth abused by repeated meth use, lesions leaking pus covering his body. He kicks out, resulting in a snort.

“The cops are on their way. Just hold tight while I make sure this flatscreen doesn’t go anywhere.” A pause. “Oh, check it out, it’s a smart TV. It has a motion sensor and everything. ‘Vivid, balanced colours’ in HD. I can see the attraction here.”

The alleged burglar roars in frustration as Matt lands on the balls of his feet at the dark end of the alleyway, melting into the shadow of a dumpster as he absorbs the scene. Sirens are incoming, the police officers inside their cruisers arguing back and forth over ‘another damn one’, only half a block away.

“Time to go. Hope you learned a lesson here.” A finger wags in the face of the humiliated man bound and wriggling on the ground. “No more stealing from independent businesses! Or, you know, any business.” There’s the faintest twang of nerves, blood rushing to the cheeks. “Crap. I’m really bad at like, rehabilitating, huh.”

The burglar screams an expletive, and is promptly deserted, cops swarming into the alley oozing confusion and a little bit of fear at the sight that awaits them. Matt ignores them, following the immortal, incomparable, _incorrigible_ Iron Fist up a fire escape and across six more rooftops before he comes to settle on a balcony, the apartment connected to it cold and empty. Matt watches from the roof above, waiting until he’s sure Danny’s just taking a breather, not chasing another criminal. He turns to leave, then –

“I knew it.”

Matt’s stomach drops, and he falls into a deep crouch behind a chimney, praying the mock-up of his old black ensemble is enough to make him invisible.

Danny’s temperature is rising, his heart jumping like a jackrabbit’s.

“Matt? I know you’re there. I caught you following me a few minutes ago.”

The hair on the back of Matt’s neck is standing up, goosebumps erupting down his arms, over his scalp – he hasn’t prepared for an eventuality like this. When he told the others to protect his city he hadn’t conceived of the possibility of them taking on his mantle, though at the time his head hadn’t had room for much besides one person, one entire world in his arms –

_Gone, now –_

Yet he’d assumed they’d retreat into their corners of New York and invoke justice their own ways. It’s flattering, if terrifying to see Danny like this.

“Matt. Foggy told us.”

Damn.

Matt inches out from behind the chimney, climbing down to the balcony with careful, measured movements. He doesn’t want to appear as anything other than whole, restored. He could weather Foggy’s diatribes and exhortations – not much more, and not from somebody else.

“So. You’re alive.”

Matt smiles; he can’t help it. It’s only been two and a half months since Midland Circle came down, but Danny seems different – taller, almost, filling out space the way he’d shied from it before. He moves with surety, every twitch catalogued, his feet poised for action. His hair is longer too, uncut, and the fruity aroma of shampoo wafts towards Matt, dazing him for a split second before he realises it’s Colleen’s, and amusement wars with despair in his heart as he yearns for something long gone. He takes a deep breath of city air. “I’m alive.”

“That’s some bullshit, Matt.”

“Gee, thanks,” says Matt, though deadpan. He’s been expecting this from all sides. “Should’ve stayed buried, huh?”

He regrets the statement as soon as it leaves his lips, but he can’t take it back and the soft wind carries salt and heat on it, Danny going red and turning away.

“I didn’t mean that,” says Matt warily, approaching step by step. The street under them is mostly empty, it being nearly 2am in a wealthy neighbourhood, but every now and then a drunk stumbles by, or a gaggle of college-age kids on their way downtown. Matt hopes you can’t see a glowing fist from down there. Just in case.

“I wanted to look for you,” says Danny in a strained voice. “Luke and Jess said it was pointless. Even Claire thought you – thought that -,”

“And they were right,” says Matt firmly. He’s come to a halt almost two feet from Danny, and can smell old blood on him now, caked into his clothes, flecked on his hands, his throat. Not all of it his. “You guys couldn’t have got me out. It took something else.”

“What?”

Matt hesitates, remembers Foggy’s expression when he explained the details of his rescue. “A story for another time,” he says, anticipating badgering, but Danny only hangs his head.

“I’m expecting weird crap after The Hand, but – just tell me it wasn’t them, at least?”

“It definitely wasn’t them,” Matt reassures him.

Danny nods soberly, and there’s an awkward beat of silence, the rush of distant cars and manmade noise as constant as Danny’s steady pulse in the night.

“We missed you,” he says finally, melancholy rolling off him in waves.

Matt quirks a crooked grin to lighten the mood. “You only knew me for three days!”

“You have a peculiar effect on people, then.” Danny fingers the hem of his rayon sweater. “Father Lantom held a beautiful service.”

Matt leans against the balcony balustrade, crossing his arms. “I heard. Thanks for going.”

“They tried to keep it low key, you know, not tie it to Daredevil’s disappearance. We all went though, even Jessica. And she’s turned day-drinking into an Olympic sport since you – well.”

Matt grimaced. “Yeah,” he says, feeling a weight settle on his chest. “I appreciate that.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

The question is raw, pitched at him like a rock. Danny’s heart thuds against his ribcage, his breaths shallow. Matt lays a hand on his arm, the muscle under his flesh tensing at the touch.

“I only told Foggy and Karen. I’ve caused them so much pain already, but – I owed them that. I wasn’t broadcasting it, otherwise. Puts more people in danger.”

Danny slides out from his grip. “We can handle ourselves. And Foggy made sure we knew in case we ran into you… like now.”

“I know, but -,”

“Are you going to meet with Luke and Jessica? Claire? Your priest?”

“I – I hadn’t thought that far, honestly, Danny.” Matt places his hands on his hips, weary all of a sudden. He had thought of his life immediately after the building collapse as brand new, untarnished by a sordid past or a woman who vanishes at will, another who’s so engrained in whatever ragged soul he has left that he would know her in a crowd of millions. The truth is that he still bears the marks of his old life, still wallows in footprints that lead back to Hell’s Kitchen. Danny is just reminding him of that.

“I know we technically barely know each other,” pipes up Danny, who has drawn closer. “But we were in the trenches together, so to speak. Haven’t you fought beside someone before, felt what that was like?”

_Her hair would whip into my face. She struck at our enemies like a snake, fast and deadly. I left her too._

“I’m sorry, Danny. I have to go.”

“Patrol?”

He looks back, the wry tone of Danny’s voice indicating grim humour. “Me too,” he says.

“Yeah. Thanks for that, by the way. Solid work.” He hopes the sincerity in his voice doesn’t come off as patronising, and he’s about to dive off the balcony onto another one below it when he hears:

“Luke and Jess would’ve loved to see you.”

He takes his leg down from the low wall, sighing. A voice in his head that sounds eerily like Stick snaps: _they’re basically strangers - missed connections at best. You don’t owe them like you did your real friends. Even if they did get chatty about you being back. Move swiftly along, Matty._

He remembers blocking a punch meant for Jessica, attracting the attention of ninjas before they could swarm Luke. He remembers trying to protect Danny from a cult that wanted to use him to hurt the place they all called home.

_Damn_ it, Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle and Moses on the handlebars.

“Where can I find them?”

Danny’s elation is potent enough to spike drinks with.


	2. The Third Day

They’re waiting for him in Luke and Claire’s apartment, clustered in the living area like they’ve cornered him into an intervention. Jessica’s arms are folded across her chest, her posture languorous but her heartbeat rapid, her skin emptying more alcohol than sweat into the room. Luke has his hands in his pockets, his head slightly stooped, and his tendons whine when he moves, tense and hesitant. Danny, in between them, is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with anticipation, the same chow mein on his breath as is on Luke’s. It’s clear that the three of them have been arguing for what might have been hours, and Matt knows this instinctively by the atmosphere, not just because he hovered on the street outside the building for forty minutes prior to the time they agreed to meet. Jessica is angry. Luke is hurt. Danny is just relieved they’re all together again.

“So…”

“That’s what you have to say for yourself?” Jessica’s tone is hard, cold – she hasn’t showered since the day before yesterday, hasn’t brushed her teeth since the day before that. There are healing scrapes on her knuckles.

“Yes,” says Matt, deciding there was no better time than now to actually try relating to people again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was trying to keep it on a need-to-know basis -,”

“We needed to know,” says Luke flatly. His breathing has picked up. “What, you think that we wouldn’t have heard the Devil was back eventually? All you had to do was drop a line.”

“’Hey guys, I’m not dead’ isn’t a call I was prepared to make, honestly,” says Matt, his fists clenched. He can feel guilt rising in him, thick and sickening. “I was recovering, anyway. I didn’t even know if I was going to come back to Hell’s Kitchen.”

“But you couldn’t stay away,” says Danny, and the ghost of a smile in his voice makes Matt feel like an asshole. Well. Even more of an asshole.

“No.” Matt sinks into a chair at the dining table, and experiences a surge of relief that leaves him lightheaded when Luke and Danny sit opposite him, though Jessica still paces by the bookcase. “Fisk is still a threat, especially to Foggy and Karen. The Punisher is still out there, wreaking havoc. And it’s New York, there’s always going to be some kind of danger to its people.” He runs a hand up and down his leg, just to feel the cotton blend, to ground him. “Death is really the only thing that would stop me from protecting my city.”

“We get that a lot’s transpired since we saw you last,” says Luke, and there’s a stilted moment where Luke and Danny seem to exchange a glance, because then Luke continues: “a lot of, uh, _unexplainable_ stuff. But it’s just good manners, man.”

“I get that. Matt Murdock died, but the Devil didn’t.” Matt inclines his head at Danny. “Not really. I can bring them both back, in time. I just need a bit of a grace period.”

“We’re not the most graceful of people,” retorts Jessica, her heart still stuttering away. “Well. Glitter-Fist over there can dance around pretty well -,” Danny rolls his eyes – “but the rest of us, not so much. What you did sucked.”

“Jessica… I’m sorry.”

“Was _she_ rescued too? Danny wasn’t clear on that part.” Jessica has come closer, but she lingers a distance away, like a freezing person who doesn’t want to be burned by the flames, even as she needs them. Matt schools his voice into something neutral.

“I don’t know where Elektra is.”

“Oh, great. So tall, dark and murder-y is out and about, carving her way through North America or some shit?” Her voice has taken on a sharp edge, anger extruding from her every pore, like last night’s whiskey.

Matt can feel himself deflating, so he inhales deeply, drinks in the elements of the apartment – the old scented candles, the Eastern philosophy textbooks, the food in the kitchen cupboards, the three people staring at him, Claire’s clean clothes alongside Luke’s in the bedroom. Claire, he thinks with a pang. He probably shouldn’t have made it a condition of the meeting that there be no-one but the four of them. God, but trying to protect people from not only him but themselves was a rough business. She deserves better than his shitty excuses anyway.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” says Danny abruptly, standing up. “We’re here, we’re together. That’s all that matters. Coffee?”

“If I drink any more coffee today I won’t sleep ever again,” says Luke grumpily, but when Danny only retrieves three mugs from the cupboard he makes an indignant sound. Danny snorts and goes about making four cups, and Matt feels a warmth swell in him that has nothing to do with the prospect of hot caffeine.

“I’m glad you had each other,” he says quietly to Luke, as Jessica drops onto the couch and Danny plucks sugar and spoons from the correct shelves without missing a beat. “It’s good to know that afterwards – I mean, that you didn’t just -,”

“Cut each other off and never call?” Luke softens the blow with a rumbling chuckle. “To be honest, it happened by accident. Jessica’s cases kept wandering into my territory, and Danny… well, he’s like the baby Claire and I never wanted to adopt.”

Matt surprises himself by laughing, feeling lighter by the second. “I missed out, huh,” he offers, and Luke shrugs.

“Your prerogative. Jess won’t say it but we are glad you’re back. Punks are getting a little uppity without Daredevil to knock them back into their place.”

“Punks are scurrying back into hiding with the rumour that the Iron Fist will pummel them, what are you yammering on about,” says Danny, setting down the coffee and handing Jessica hers.

Luke grunts. “I wouldn’t go that far. Glitter-Fist.”

“You dilute Jessica’s insults every time you repeat them, so keep it up.”

Matt lets them bicker, taking his coffee and padding over to where Jessica is slumped, her mug abandoned on the table on top of a coaster. It’s a weirdly polite affectation for someone as abrasive as her, Matt thinks idly, then feels like an asshole again. He sits next to her, and takes it as a good sign that she doesn’t get up at once nor tip the coffee into his lap.

“I’m a private investigator.”

Matt looks up. “What?”

“I’m a private investigator, numbnuts. I didn’t need Nelson to tell me shit. I would have figured it out.”

“I’m sure you would have,” says Matt cautiously. Jessica shifts, dragging a hand through her hair, away from her face. Her gusty exhale could have stripped paint.

“I wouldn’t have told anyone either. If that’s what you were worried about.”

“No, it’s -,” Matt huffs out a breath, impatient. “It wasn’t you, or the guys, or anything. I was trying to keep my circle small, diminish the target, you know -,”

“Oh,” Jessica’s voice has morphed into a drawl, contempt dripping from every syllable. “You were trying to keep us _safe_. Is that it?”

Matt can’t help but share in her amusement, mirthless though it is. “It sounds stupid to you, I know. But there are people out there that will do just about anything to get to me. Even go through people I barely know.”

“Get over yourself, Murdock.” Jessica stands up and stretches, the leather of her jacket warm and musky and disarming. Her heart has calmed to a steady rhythm, faster than Luke’s, slower than Danny’s. He memorises the syncopation without realising it, his lungs suddenly too small for the oxygen he was trying to absorb. Jessica’s chin is tilted downwards; she’s looking straight at him.

“If you get that worked up over protecting us then maybe we deserve a little more credit than ‘people you barely know’.” She’s grave again, and the guys are silent at the table, listening. “We’re friends, idiot. Unfortunate, I know. But that’s the situation. Live with it.”

She strides towards the door, barking a farewell at Luke and Danny as she slams it shut. Matt gets up, his coffee untouched, and makes as though to leave as well. Danny skids into his path, distressed.

“It’s okay,” says Matt, and oddly, he thinks it actually might be. He’s worked alone for so long that the idea of sharing the responsibility of his violent enterprise is still unconscionable to him. Not only the knowledge of putting others in danger, of having liabilities in the field – but of relying on someone else, of allowing himself to become lazy, to assume there would always be a backup plan. Working with the other three had been tumultuous, spurred by desperation and fear, and he had died as a result in every way that counted. But they hadn’t let him down. Even after, when they believed him to be nothing but dust, they had carried forth his memory and nourished his legacy.

Friends, indeed.

Matt places a hand on Danny’s shoulder, swallowing a chortle when he remembers the last time they were in this very same position.

“I’ll see you around?”

Danny turns to Luke, and whatever he sees there calms him.

“Hell yeah, you will.”

Matt leaves with fonder goodbyes and less rigmarole than Jessica, and doesn’t even flinch when he finds her lurking on the sidewalk outside, his cheeks aching with how broad his smile grows. They fall into step together, and it feels so natural that for once, the ever-present dread inside the Man Without Fear is stifled.


End file.
